Eynulla Fatullayev replies to Council of Europe Secretary General: "Will world soon see compromising material on Jagland?" (Our editorial)

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BY EYNULLA FATULLAYEV

Secretary General of the Council of Europe Thorbjørn Jagland once again burst out with an "angry accusatory speech." This time he didn't accuse, only replied. By its own admission, to the propaganda attacks by haqqin.az.

Jagland in Russia

The formal reason for the angry philippic of the secretary general was my article in one of the recent issues of the site, where I took the liberty of criticizing the atavistic evils of the development of the Council of Europe itself. Just wondered how it turned out that two identical organizations, the Council of Europe and Euronest, invested not only with the same mission of "Europeanization" of several states, including Azerbaijan, declared by the same secretary general himself as "the backyard of the post-liberal civilization," but also both being degraded to the role of an instrument of pressure in the hands of certain world players.

Neither Turkey, nor Georgia, nor Ukraine, nor Moldova, let alone Azerbaijan, have any realistic prospect of integration into the European community, at least in the coming decades. This is tirelessly talked about by leading European politicians. In the absence of intelligible perspectives of integration into the heterogeneous and rather problematic European community that has been lost in the vague reality of the antagonism of the childhood disease of globalism and the revanchism of national sovereign rights, the Strasbourg Council, resurrected from the ruins of the Cold War in the hypostasis of a ghost, strives to turn Azerbaijan into an even more liberal and democratic state than the cradle of European democracy Great Britain. Unbelievable, but the demands put forth now to Great Britain or Italy are softer and more liberal than the ultimatum presented to Azerbaijan.

European Court of Human Rights

Traditional European countries refuse to execute thousands of decisions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), and Great Britain even encroached on the holy of holies: it wants out of the jurisdiction of Strasbourg. Russia, accused of neo-imperial revanchism, in constitutional order regulates the superiority of its national judicial power over the European Court of Human Rights. Moldova, crushed in the clutches of unionists and expansionists, has not reacted to numerous decisions of the ECtHR for decades ... And now the secretary general of the Council of Europe throws all these precedents into an urn like a scrap of unnecessary paper, literally obsessed with one decision of the ECtHR: on Azerbaijani prisoner Ilgar Mammadov.

In my last article, I just voiced these questions, born of a sense of justice, which caused for some reason the rage of Secretary General Jagland. What did I get in return? Offensive attack. The Council of Europe is an organization designed primarily to guard the right of self-expression. And Jagland accuses me of serving the Azerbaijani authorities, reproaching the support given to me by the Council of Europe in the years I spent in prison.

Yes it's true. In 2007, I ran into the mafia group of general-oligarch Eldar Mahmudov, who tried to crush me under the tracks of punitive special services. I stood firm. First of all, thanks to the protection and solidarity of the Council of Europe. However, judging by the logic of Mr. Jagland, after that I have no moral right to criticize everything connected with the Council of Europe. So, whom did Strasbourg defend? Prisoner Eynulla Fatullaev or the principles and values reflected in the European Convention of Human Rights? What kind of logic is this? What kind of approach? What manifestation of authoritarian thinking and an attempt to differentiate activists into "their own and others"?

Eynulla Fatullayev at the picket of journalists

From Jagland's words it follows that having been obliged in the past to the Council of Europe I must direct all my potential to fight the Azerbaijani authorities! Why such a priori hostile attitude to power? Why did Jagland write official Baku among the enemies of the European community? And why did he take on the role of a judge, who decides the fate of people, nations and governments? Who gave him the moral right to insult the memory of one of the prominent Azerbaijanis of the twentieth century, prominent politician-coryphaeus Heydar Aliyev, resorting to metaphors and idioms that are unworthy of European politics? By the way, it was thanks to Heydar Aliyev and the Council of Europe that a free thought and liberal press started in Azerbaijan in 2001: the authorities abolished censorship, licenses and declared complete freedom of the media. And I was one of those who took advantage of the people's right to freedom.

For the information of Jagland, I did not bow my head to the statue of the outstanding Azerbaijani Heydar Aliyev, but I bow my head before his unforgettable memory!

And on the other hand, how does the secretary general of the Council, who stands guard over European values, oblige me or anyone else to think as he sees fit? What manners are these? How to understand this dictate and suppression of the free will of a human being? And how does this relate to European values? What kind of amazing political philosophy is it?

Jagland tries to justify himself explaining his aggression towards Azerbaijan and official Baku with his devotion to the historical legacy of another politician-coryphaeus, great Willy Brandt. But the poverty of philosophy and frank voluntarism of the secretary general, thirst to impose on everyone his frame of mind, testify to one truth: this Norwegian politician could not rethink the legacy of the great German Social Democrat.

After all, what is the grandiose role of Brandt in world history? The German politician, unlike Jagland, incribed his glorious name in European history thanks to his own, now legendary "new eastern policy," aimed at reloading and alleviating tension between the Euro-Atlantic community and the socialist camp. Brandt never resorted to the language of threats and war, on the contrary, he reconciled, imposed compromises, denied ultimatums, recognized errors, destroyed stereotypes...

Willy Brandt and Leonid Brezhnev

Brandt's philosophy is the absolute antithesis of Jagland's uncompromising aggression. Brandt! Does Jagland have any idea of Brandt, who, by the way, became a victim of the blasphemous insinuations of the imperialists?

Secretary General Jagland, in his multifaceted and seemingly large-scale activity, has chosen one target - Azerbaijan, placing himself on the same level with the rag-tagged NGO people - puny executors of grant projects.

One can recall his candidly biased statement about the Ramil Safarov case, when he accused Azerbaijan of "honoring the convicted murderer," or his critical article in The Guardian in 2014, when he urged Great Britain not to get out of the jurisdiction of the Council of Europe, as this, say, would create a precedent for such countries as Azerbaijan. And then from the pen of Jagland comes out the name of only one country: Azerbaijan! Does the sun rise and set on Azerbaijan? Isn't there on the Eurasian continent a single outrageous case of human rights violations?! Why didn't Jagland notice the cruel and unprecedented suppression of human freedoms on the example of the will of the Armenian Electromaidan or the destruction of the Yerevan Sasna Tsrer?

Too often there is an incessant "why" in our mouths. Our incessant questions were met only -- I repeat, at first glance -- the inexplicable and unrighteous anger of the secretary general. An event out of the ordinary: the secretary general himself reacted to an article by a journalist from a distant South Caucasus country!

However, I seem to guess Jagland's motives. Maybe the secretary general didn't particularly like the fact that I made public his illegible links with some corruption circles in Russia?

Since his election to the post of secretary general, Jagland has made at least five visits to Moscow. The imprudent ties of the secretary general of the organization, which has accumulated a lot of questions to Russia in connection with the "Crimean issue" and the "Abkhaz cause," Moscow's interference in electoral technologies in Western countries, cause, at least, bewilderment. After all, we are talking about a country, towards which the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in 2014 resorted to sanctions, limiting its status in the Assembly. It was from 2014, from the very moment, when Russia started to have tangible problems in the Council of Europe, that Jagland began to visit Moscow every year expressing solidarity at its most difficult hour.

Jagland can meet the fate of the very same PACE Chairman, Spaniard Pedro Agramunt. One cannot exclude the possibility of some well-wisher leaking to the international press information about the true reasons for such support from Jagland, as it recently happened to Pedro Agramunt.

Agramunt became an outcast in PACE, Jagland risks forever covering his name with shame. And then it is possible that the relevant structures of the Council of Europe, which initiated an investigation into the facts of corruption against their own officials, will have to deal with the matter of the secretary general himself.

Not one word against Russia, Moldova, Britain, Italy... and a massive propaganda campaign against Azerbaijan. How to understand Jagland?